Play Again: A Danganronpa IF
by MangaMaid4545
Summary: Chiaki Nanami wakes up to find herself in a strange room she's never been in before and ends up having a conversation with Izuru Kamukura. While her life may be saved, the future is another story. However, Chiaki is determined to make a future happen, not only for herself, but for her classmates, who have been tainted with despair, and for Hinata. Hinanami/Kamunami.
1. Promises

MangaMaid's Notes: WARNING! This is a 'what if' fic set after episode 10 of the Despair Arc of Dangan Ronpa 3. If you haven't watched episode 10, I don't suggest reading this because SPOILERS. If you have, then please continue on. ALSO, please note, Chiaki is calling Izuru 'Hinata' because that's how it is in the Despair Arc.

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Pain. That was the first thing Chiaki was aware of and it confused her. Hadn't she died after talking to Hinata? She had been bleeding out from being impaled and felt herself growing cold as she talked to him. But, if this was where souls went after they died, why did it hurt? Wasn't she supposed to be free of pain now that she was dead? Slowly, as if surfacing out of the inky blackness that was unconsciousness, she opened her eyes.

To her surprise, she was in a room of sorts. If she could call it a room. In actuality, it reminded her more of waking up in a prison cell, like she had at the start of multiple games. Glancing around, she saw that the room was completely empty of furniture save for the one bed she was on. It was dark, with no lights except one coming from what she guessed was the door, but she could also make out an IV stand on her left that was in her arm. Empty blood transfusion bags were scattered on the floor next to the IV.

"You're awake."

Chiaki looked up to see Hinata in the doorway, watching her with the familiar and yet unfamiliar eyes he now had. After a moment, he walked forward until he was next to her bedside.

It took a moment for Chiaki to get her voice to work and when she did it sounded raspy. "Hinata… where… where am I?"

"This is my room." He answered, his voice in the same bored tone that he used now.

"Your room?" She blinked her confusion. "What… Why am I here?"

"It was the one place I could work in relative peace without Enoshima's interference." He paused, as if he had heard something and moved back to shut the door, plunging the room in total darkness. There was a long minute of silence and Chiaki's eyes adjusted a bit to the dark before she heard his footsteps coming back to her. "She thinks I have taken your body to dispose of it."

"You saved me?" Chiaki asked. Hinata didn't answer, so she decided to ask another question. "What about Instructor Chisa? The others? Are they okay?"

"They have succumbed to despair."

"What?" Chiaki felt fear flood her. "Then we have to save them!" She started to move only for firm hands to keep her in place.

"You cannot do that."

"But-!"

Hinata cut her off. "You are still injured from what happened to you. Your body must have the proper time to heal. If I were to let you go at this moment, Enoshima would destroy you."

"But I can't let them suffer… I have to save them!"

"You cannot do anything for them at this moment," Hinata replied, his voice firm. "You are too weak to face Enoshima."

Sadness welled up inside her as she understood his words and tears trickled down her face. It was like trying to take on the final boss while she was still at too low of a level to even survive. The words stung, but she knew it was true. However, there had to be a way for her to help.

"I don't understand you or your motivation to save others so much. However…" Hinata paused. "If they are that important to you, I will watch over them for you until you are ready to face Enoshima."

Wiping away her tears, she looked up at the dark shape that was Hinata. "Hinata… Why are you doing this for me?"

"This world is boring to me. I can predict people and their actions just by looking at them. But you… you are different. You gave me feelings other than boredom. When you fell unconscious, I felt regret and sadness and a desire to save you. I do not understand it myself." His head swiveled towards the door and he said, "Someone's coming to look for me. I will have to go see what Enoshima wants with me. Stay quiet and stay put. Try to sleep."

Chiaki nodded her agreement. Before Hinata left, he took her left hand in his. "One day, Nanami, you and I will play games again. Look forward to that future." His fingers pressed something into her hand before he let go and left the room.

Touching the item in her hand, Chiaki smiled a little as she felt her eyes begin to droop. "Look to the future? Okay... I will, Hinata. But... you better show me your very best run... when we do play again."

Hours later, when Izuru Kamukura would finally return to his room, he'd find Chiaki Nanami asleep on his bed, the Gala Omega hairpin he'd returned to her still tightly held in her left hand.

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Ending Comments: Yup. There's that. Anyways, enjoy and tell me what you think! Also, what happened to Chiaki was not okay. It really was not.

 ***UPDATE* 9/16/2016: I have gotten enough asks that I am seriously considering changing this from a one-shot to a full fledged chapter story. HOWEVER! If that happens, it will not be until both Future Arc and Despair Arc have finished, so I can see whether or not a continuation is necessary. Once that's done, if I decide it needs continuing, I will change the story to incomplete and post the next chapter. So, we'll see how the arcs play out.**


	2. The Neo World Program

MangaMaid's Notes: Yes, I decided to continue this and finally updated. I planned to update immediately after Hope Arc -because to have Izuru save everyone BUT Chiaki... Grr. Still bitter at Kodaka for that-, however, it didn't pan out because it took me a while to decide what I was going to with this chapter. I had originally planned for Chiaki to be awake this chapter, but it didn't fit so I had to rewrite this and decided what to do with Izuru since Chiaki is unconscious in this chapter. I had a bunch of scenarios of him meeting Class 77-B and Chisa, but I decided to scrap that idea and instead cover something else. Still I apologize for taking so very long to update. I hope you like it!

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It was months before Chiaki Nanami opened her eyes again. In that time, she dreamed. Her world became sessions of video games by the Academy fountain and after class visits to arcades with Hinata, picnics and social gatherings she held for her classmates, the fun her class had with Instructor Chisa. Still, sometimes, she would feel pain in random places on her body, but as the days went on, they became second-nature.

Unbeknownst to her, the world was becoming more and more restless. The protest of Reserve Course students which had been titled by those in charge of Hope's Peak as the 'Parade' was becoming more and more violent outside and growing louder with each passing day. The world was headed on a course of despair, all according to a plan orchestrated by one teenage girl, the 78th class's Super High School Level Fashionista, Junko Enoshima.

And it was all being observed by Izuru Kamukura.

Currently, Izuru stood in one of the empty classrooms in Hope's Peak, lost in his own thoughts. He did not understand what drew him to the rosy-eyed, sandy pink haired girl that was currently unconscious in the room that had been his prison for so long. He knew little about her, but he supposed she was like every other human which meant she had to be predictable in some way and, therefore, boring. However, every time he thought that, something small, yet unable to be forgotten or ignored, flared up that she was important. The feeling should've become boring by now, most things did, but this feeling wasn't something he felt bored by. In fact, he didn't understand it at all, no matter how many times it appeared.

It was what had made him take her hand and utter that promise to her when she had awakened only a day or so after he had saved her life. The unbidden promise that held no meaning and _so much meaning_ at the same time. He couldn't even understand what part of him had possessed him to utter those words. Games were meaningless, repetitive, but still, he had promised her they'd play them again one day. It was something that no matter how many times he tried to grasp the reason, it slipped away from his finger. That was unusual. Something he couldn't understand. Yet. He was the Super High School Level Hope and he would gain understanding of this… feeling and master it soon enough.

Perhaps the feeling came from his former self, from Hinata. Nanami had seemed rather determined to call him by his previous life's name even though she knew now that he retained nothing from that life. However, if that feeling was from his past self, did that mean that his teachers had lied when they said everything had been erased? Or was it an unexpected result? Either way, he did not know what to make of it. While he pondered the idea, his memories of the situation after she had lost consciousness came to the surface.

 _He stared at the bloodied hair clip in his hand. While he looked at it, his vision began to blur and something warm and wet trickled down his cheeks. He touched his cheek with a finger and held it up for inspection. Water… Which meant tears. These weren't the regular basal kind that the body produced every day, his mind supplied. The first thought to come into his mind was reflex, but he quickly discarded the idea, considering the lack of eye irritants around which left…_

 _Emotional tears._

 _A soft noise of surprise escaped him. When it did, his body was hit with an onslaught of new experiences. His chest was too tight, almost suffocating him and when he inhaled, his airway struggled to cooperate, the oxygen catching around his larynx on the way to his lungs. A sharp, stabbing pain in his chest appeared. It twisted in his heart and squeezed tightly. How could he have let this happen to her?_

 _The thought caught him off guard. His mind raced. These feelings. Was this what his teachers had described as grief and regret? Was this what it was like to_ feel _sorrow? At the same moment, another throbbing pain appeared in his head, fogging his logic and his mind. He recognized it as a headache since he'd had them in the first couple weeks since his 'birth'. However, with the headache came something new; much like an unignorable voice that was in time with his heartbeat, a small impulse made itself known._

He had to save her…

 _Izuru looked her over. Considering the amount of blood loss she was already in severe hypovolemic shock. Cardiac arrest was certain to follow in a matter of minutes or seconds, if it hadn't already occurred. The chances of her survival would be slim, if not impossible-_

He had to save her.

 _The puncture wounds in her chest and abdomen alone would require surgery. Due to the proximity of the wounds to her internal organs, something must've been punctured or, at the very least, nicked. She would require multiple blood transfusions just to live and-_

He had to _save her_!

 _Unable to to ignore the impulse, he found himself at her side, kneeling in her blood as his hands moved to her neck. His fingers checked for a pulse and found one; faint, but still there. She was alive, but her pulse was fading. However, he knew she would not die. He would not allow her death and because he would not allow it, it would not happen._

 _He was loved by talent itself. Luck was among his many talents and according to his teachers, his luck was unlike the Super High School Level Lucky Students they admitted. While they were subject to negative and positive shifts of luck in an odd form of luck roulette, his luck tended to bend the world to his will since talent adored him. It was_ why _he was the Super High School Level Hope, they told him. He could shape the world however he wished. The only time his luck had not completely done as he planned was when he shot that white-haired student with his own gun, which made logical sense considering that student was also a SHSL Lucky Student and his own luck had come into play._

 _Taking off his suit jacket and white button-up, he ripped the white shirt into makeshift bandages that he used to cover her wounds. It wouldn't going to stop the bleeding at once, but it would do to slow down the blood loss. While his hands worked, he tried to understand why he was doing this. It was illogical. He only had met the girl twice. There was no reason for him to save her._

 _A sharp pain, more vibrant than any headache he had ever known before sprang from the back of his mind and a faint burning sensation -anger?- flared up. Even if it was illogical and meaningless, he could not let her die. If he did, he would never forgive himself for it._

 _Once Izuru had finished, he wrapped Nanami up into his jacket, swaddling her and her injuries with it like one would a young child. He then lifted her into his arms, shifted her so that she was more easily carried, and took off as quick a pace as was safe for the girl in his arms._

 _While his knowledge warned of the danger of moving her, it wasn't safe for him to try and treat her here. Not only did he lack equipment, but this was Enoshima's territory, her domain, and if she caught him trying to save Nanami, she would do all in her power to thwart him. It would be meaningless for her, but even with his luck talent, he dared not to push it more than he already was considering she had supposedly just used Nanami to recruit that SHSL Lucky Student he had failed to kill. Even so, Nanami would not die. Not here. Not while he could save her. And he_ would _save her._

A flash of silver caught his attention, pulling him from his thoughts, and he dodged the knife that had been headed for his left eye. He minutely narrowed his eyes at the pigtailed girl holding the knife as a warning to stop. As always, Junko Enoshima was nothing if not persistent in her pitifully meaningless attempts to kill him. How dull.

The strawberry blonde grinned at him with a perfectly white smile that would make most stop and stare at the beauty in it if there weren't so many teeth showing and the light in her baby blue eyes wasn't so demented. "Aw, Kamukura," she said in a high-pitched, childlike voice, the same grin on her face as she continued to attack. "And here, I thought you weren't paying attention. You know if you have that look on your face, someone might think you aren't interested at all in despair! In fact, it looks like you were remembering something."

He said nothing, not that Enoshima had even gave him a chance to.

Instead, she continued to babble away in her childish demeanor as her attacks continued, "Perhaps it was a memory of your former self? Or maybe it was a time before our despairingly fateful encounter? Or was it after we met and you got to know despair? Well, Kamukura?"

Remaining silent, Izuru's face twitched into a minute expression of hostility, something that surprised him. However, before his face had melted back into his regular expression of disinterested boredom, Enoshima caught sight of it and she stopped her attacks.

Her personality shifted and she dropped her cutesy voice. "Is that _dislike_ I see on your face, Kamukura? Are you perhaps annoyed that I pried into your personal thoughts? Or perhaps, you're making yourself react in a way that hopelessly logical brain of yours tells you to?" She smirked. "Which is it, I wonder." A snort escaped her. "Not that it matters. But…" Covering her mouth with her hands, her eyes filled with tears as she continued. "The fact that Kamukura could hate me, I don't know how to handle it at all! You don't hate me, right, Kamukura?!"

"Our relationship has nothing to do with like and dislike," Izuru answered flatly.

"Aweh! You didn't have to put it like that, even if it's true." Her face shifted from sad to businesslike. "Anyways, you're probably wondering why I had you meet me here, right? Well, I have to ask you to do a little favor for me, Kamukura." She pulled out a pair of glasses, switching into her guise of a teacher, before handing him a manila folder filled with papers to look over. As Izuru looked it over, she started into her explanation, "As you can see, these are profiles of three students who attended this school; my _precious_ classmate, Chihiro Fujisaki, the Super High School Level Programmer, the Super High School Level Therapist, Miaya Gekkogahara, and the former Super High School Level Neurologist, my beloved Yasuke Matsuda."

"'Former'?"

She tossed her glasses aside and clapped her hands to her cheeks in a look of surprise. "Oh, that's right! You were locked away during that time by the idiots that made up the now deceased Steering Committee! I completely forgot!" She covered her face with her hands and began to sob. "Yes, it's true. A few weeks ago, my beloved Yasuke left this world! The memory of him just fills me with such _despair_!"

He wasn't fooled. "You murdered him."

"Kamukura!" Enoshima looked up in shock and placed a hand over her heart in a theatrical gesture. "How dare you say such a thing?! I mean, how heartless can you get?! Accusing me of killing one of the two people who I love more than anything in this world! That's too cruel!" Her lips quirked up into a small smirk of a smile. "I guess I should say I'm surprised you caught on so fast, but I'm not. While Headmaster Kirigiri still has _no_ idea of who killed his student -and he's been looking into it for _weeks_ -, I knew you'd catch on."

Enoshima's smile grew into her manic grin. "It was his death that gave me the _wonderful_ idea on how to recruit the 77-B class into the ranks of despair, you know. Having someone they loved and cared about taken away from them, it gave them the strongest despair besides death itself and with Mitarai's techniques added, they learned just how _dazzling_ the world of despair is!" She paused and walked to the classroom's window to look out. "Although, I wonder what despair their class rep felt, dying with the knowledge that she would never see her beloved classmates again and that she wasn't able to do anything to save them from me. Her despair must've been so despairingly strong, I'm so... jealous! Upupupu!"

The impulse that had been born from Nanami's near death sprung forward in a fiery heat of anger and for a single, solitary second, Izuru saw red. However, that second of uncontained rage passed and by the time Enoshima had turned back around, he was back in control. That being said, even though he had already decided it would not be logical to kill Enoshima in a fit of emotion -after all, she did provide him with unpredictability that chased away the boredom that plagued him-, the fury that had almost overcome him still roared in the back of his mind.

Unaware, Enoshima pulled her glasses back on, tapped the folder in his hands with the carmine nail of her left pointer finger, and said, "Anyways, back to our lesson. So Fujisaki's helping with this little idea that Gekkogahara came up with, as did Yasuke before his despairful demise. According to Fujisaki, Gekkogahara supposedly calls it the Neo World Program. As we speak, my ugly disappointment of a sister is looking for clues into what this program supposedly does, but since Gekkogahara's left the school on a trip overseas and taken her notes and plans with her, I'm not sure the fat pig will find much here." She sighed in a forlorn manner. "Yasuke died before I even heard about it, so I asked Fujisaki what it's for, but even he's not sure. Apparently, Gekkogahara is rather tight-lipped about the plan."

He glanced up at her. "You want me to look over these profiles and theorize what the Neo World Program is."

"Precisely." She tossed her glasses aside and began to lightly pull at her hair. Tears welled up in her eyes while mushrooms appeared on the top of her head. When she spoke, her voice was desolate and broken. "I mean, what if this program helps put an end to despair? It'd be so tragic… And I'd just feel so sad… I mean, no despair at all? It'd make the world just so… hopelessly painful, you know…?"

Izuru's eyebrows raised for half a second before he returned to looking over the profiles.

The first had a headshot of a pale girl with shoulder-length, steel blue hair and gentle, but shy azure eyes stared back at him. Her mouth was hidden behind a large crimson scarf, and judging from the background, she seemed to be placed in a wheelchair of some sort. A quick glance informed him this was the SHSL Therapist, Miaya Gekkogahara. It only took him a couple minutes to read through her profile before he moved on to the next one.

The next picture was a male with a neck-length mess of black hair, a pale face that looked consumed by stress, and apathetic ice blue gaze that he recognized as belonging to Yasuke Matsuda, the SHSL Neurologist. His profile took Izuru only a minute or so more to read, but that was mainly due to little notes and doodles that Enoshima had scribbled over some parts. Her handwriting switched from neat and pristine to something akin to a kindergartener's scribblings. Enoshima's boredom was even present in her writing.

The last picture belonged to the SHSL Programmer, Chihiro Fujisaki. If not for a few of the few infinitesimal facial details that hinted at the programmer's true gender, Izuru might have initially mistaken him for a female with his large, doll-like hazel eyes, long layered chestnut hair, and pale skin. Once he had finished Fujisaki's profile, he began to go over the knowledge that he had just obtained.

Gekkogahara was the daughter of a Japanese diplomat and she and her parents had traveled across the world for her father's work. However, at the age of seven, the hotel she and her family had been staying at was attacked by a terrorist group rebelling against the government of the country they were in. Gekkogahara's mother was killed in the attack, her father taken hostage alongside some of his fellow diplomats, and Gekkogahara's throat had been slashed along with her receiving other injuries that had ultimately rendered her legs useless. Her only other living relatives, her maternal grandparents, had taken her in and sent her to a therapist to help her cope with the trauma while the government struggled to negotiate the hostages' release.

However, while living with her grandparents and seeing a therapist had helped her mental status improve, due to the damage she had sustained -particularly to her vocal cords-, Gekkogahara struggled to make friends. In response, she had retreated into MMORPGs and chat rooms, using her avatar -a magical girl _rabbit_ of all things, named Magical Girl Miracle Usami- to be her voice. She had been a listening ear for her online friends and giving them advice for their problems. In only a year, Gekkogahara had become known throughout the internet for her ability to help and support anyone through a problem that was troubling them.

However, soon after, the negotiations for her father had fallen through and while some of the hostages had been recovered, Gekkogahara had been left an orphan. This time, the loss -coupled with witnessing the mental and physical state the rescued had been in- served as the final push to motivate her to become a therapist and help others through severe trauma. Considering that and the fact she had been creating this program with the SHSL Neurologist and Programmer…

"Well, Kamukura?! What do ya think?" Enoshima asked. She bounced up and down on her heels while giving him a large, childlike look of curiosity. "Tell me! Tell me!"

Izuru closed the manila folder. "Most likely, the Neo World Program is a virtual reality for patients who are unstable or not responding to the conventional methods of treatment. I assume it uses Matsuda's ability to manipulate memories to allow a patient to act as they had in a more stable period of their life."

"So, it could rid the world of wonderful despair?" Enoshima clucked her tongue and snatched the folder from his hands. "I see… That does present a problem, doesn't it?" She closed her eyes, thinking about what to do.

He turned away and began to leave.

"Awww, leaving already?" Enoshima called out.

His head moved just enough to the left to glance at her over his shoulder. "I did as you asked."

"Yeah, yeah…" She waved her left hand as if she was chasing his words away. "Whatever. I'll let you know when we should meet up again, kay?"

Without a word, Izuru turned and headed into the hallway, leaving Enoshima to go back to her plotting. As he glided down the hallways towards the spidery network of tunnels that hid the darker things of Hope's Peak from the public eye, he wondered for a moment what Enoshima would do to destroy Gekkogahara's idea. Knowing her, the most probable outcome would be a virus of some sort. Boring.

Izuru opened the door to his room and found Nanami was still unconscious on the bed, her IV giving her a sugar solution. Her mouth was slightly open as she slept, a tiny bit of drool escaping down her cheek and onto the pillow.

Izuru sat himself on the edge of the bed, careful not to disturb her, since her body was still recuperating. As he stared at her face, the same question that had plagued him since their last conversation came up again. What exactly had pushed him to act in that moment? Perhaps it was the fact she had caused him other emotions rather than boredom. But why? Hinata should have been, by all reason and logic, dead. His whole self had been erased except for the ability and drive to gain talent.

Yet, Nanami had believed he could remember his previous self, even though he had told her that any chance of remembering was impossible and any attempts would be meaningless. His doctors and teachers had tested him for weeks to see if he had any memories of his past life. Nothing was left. Still, she had believed that he could do so. It was baffling.

Everything was boring to him now, but sometimes in the first couple of weeks he had lived, when he was alone, shut away from the world, he'd wondered about his previous self. What had he been like? No one had allowed him to see anything about his old life. He hadn't even known his old name before Nanami had called him Hinata. All he had been told was that he had been chosen out of the Reserve Course. It had occupied him until he had started gaining new talents. Now, did he even want to know? After all, Reserve Course students had no talent. It had nothing to do with a talent, logic told him, so it was meaningless. However, knowing who he was could set a foundation for him to theorize answers to the questions he couldn't answer: Why he had cried when Nanami had lost consciousness. What had pushed him to act when all he did was observe because everything was boring. What about Chiaki Nanami brought out _emotions_ from _him_.

Nanami twitched in her sleep and a flash of color caught his eye. Even though she'd been out for months, her hairpin still rested in her hand. The golden color of late afternoon, the sound of rushing water, and Nanami's face close to his, asking his opinion of Gala Omega with a bright blush and an excitement that startled him overtook him for a split second before the imagery disappeared. Izuru blinked. A memory? Before he could try to retain it, it slipped away like the sand in an hourglass.

Glancing back to her face, Izuru thought about the memory that had appeared. Could Nanami help him regain what he had lost? Perhaps so, but success would statistically be higher once she was awake. Until then, he would wait for her and while he did, continue to watch Enoshima and her despair. After all, it was less boring that way.

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Ending Comments: So, there's chapter 2. I hope you guys enjoyed it. Please tell me what you think.


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